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Shouto is - okay, after the war. He goes back to school, the only major change there being that he, like the other students, has to see a therapist now. He moves his things from home to his mother's house and does rue that he can't spend his time learning to live with her again until after he graduates, but at least Natsuo and Fuyumi are there, doing their best to make things not only safe but joyful for her. (Shouto hopes Fuyumi is giving herself time and space to not always be the mother figure she's been all these past years, but he doesn't know how to ask her.) He sees a lot of Izuku, Tenya, Uraraka and Bakugou, but especially Izuku, who is opinionated on post-war society in a way Shouto doesn't know how to be, at least not with that level of confidence. Oddly (but not regrettably, Shouto thinks) the government seems largely aligned with Izuku's point of view, sending far fewer people to prison than would be the standard. Realistically, this doesn't come from Izuku-style idealism as much as simple concerns about overcrowding as well as the fact that, the state of law being what it was, it is more than a bit challenging to unequivocally define what distinguished a hero from a villain during those very strange days. Nowhere do the consequences of this odd approach become more visible to Shouto than with his brother, a situation also complicated by the fact that both the police and Dabi himself seem to be fairly baffled that Dabi has not died yet. He had wanted to, in the end, Shouto senses, but his body had held together against all odds, if barely. Trying to use his quirk again will kill him, the doctors say, leaving unsaid the implication that this makes the Touya containment situation self-limiting, as it were. As it is he is in rehab, learning how to use the charred remains of his arms and legs. No one talks about what will happen after, but Shouto doubts he'll want to go home with Rei and the others even if some uninformed official tries to pose the option.
In one of the great spasms of irony that have haunted the Todoroki family these past years, Endeavor's situation is not altogether dissimilar. He can use his quirk still, but not for hero work, or at least he really shouldn't, his back being broken beyond repair. He doesn't show up at school and Shouto still doesn't reply to his texts in a timely fashion, but they talk on the phone most weeks, short conversations where his father checks in on him and Shouto tries to figure out how to make his mouth work with his brain and not against it (but then Shouto encounters that problem when conversing with anyone else as well). Shouto knows Endeavor visits Dabi at least once a week, and takes the fact that he knows no more details than that as indication that it has yet to go either better or worse than expected. In short, things are fine. Okay. Good, even.
Mom telling them she's signed the divorce papers comes as a relief, and Shouto is all the more relieved that she isn't even trying to pretend it should come as anything but, even to Fuyumi who, for her part, does tear up a little when she hugs Mom and tells her she wants her to be happy, that she's done the right thing. Natsuo and Shouto sit back awaiting Mom's space to free up, and it's shocking how easy things feel with Natsuo nowadays, this brother he has just learned to know - Natsuo is his own man in a way Shouto fears he'll never be, clever and steadfast despite everything, but they share both a mildness and a cynicism with their mother in a way that their other two siblings do not.
"I'm proud of you, Mom," Natsuo says, better with words than Shouto has ever been. "I hoped this would happen," is what Shouto says for his part, and everyone laughs at that, not at Shouto but with him, an emotional release - they've all been feeling that way, Natsuo says.
"You haven't met someone new, have you?" Fuyumi asks, tongue half in cheek. "I'm sure some of Shouto's friends' parents must be s-"
Mom snorts. "No. Not the time for that, I don't think."
Fuyumi glances at Shouto for a moment, as if she wants to say something but won't. The conversation moves on, doesn't leave Shouto wondering for too long. Before he leaves he gives his mom a hug so long it makes him feel embarrassed, like a little boy again, and she gently thanks him for coming and for understanding, tells him to say hi to that nice boy Midoriya on her behalf. Shouto is fine.
Izuku looks strange as Shouto enders the common room, the red-hot of his ears mismatched with the pallor and oddly queasy expression on his face. "Are you alright?" Shouto knits his brows together and Izuku's face loosens up in a split-second, nodding fervently. "I am - it's okay! I mean, I'm okay with - sorry, Shouto, did you see…?"
The afternoon news broadcast is rolling. Oh. "Former Number One Hero Endeavor spotted in fiery embrace with his replacement! Winged Hero Hawks -" Shouto looks away. The headline is so profoundly silly he feels like laughing out loud for a moment, and also he knows with a sudden certainty that it can only be true, tawdry tabloid spin aside.
"It's the paparazzi," Izuku says, tone apologetic as if he had anything to do with it. "They got them coming out of your - well, your father's house. I guess they forgot, stepping out of the door - they were just holding hands, don't worry! - "
Shouto raises a hand to cut Izuku off, immediately feels horribly rude for doing so, but Izuku just nods. "Sorry. Can I ask - did you know?"
"Fuck no." Shouto rarely swears, but somehow this situation seems to call for it. Izuku giggles a little. It's distractingly cute. "That was… fast."
Izuku nods as if to say you're telling me. "I guess they did go through a lot together? In, uh, recent times. But Shouto, your mom…"
"Divorce official of today. It was a bit of a celebration, really."
"You can celebrate the timing too, then." That makes Shouto snort, despite himself. Izuku might be shy and nervous (in conversation, never in battle), but with Shouto he is always forthright. Shouto likes that a lot.
Wait. "I think Fuyumi knew." Which means Mom knows, too. Fuyumi was never any good at keeping secrets. This… makes Shouto feel relieved, of all things. Mom shouldn't have to find out from the paparazzi, unsuspecting.
He texts Fuyumi, gets confirmation that Mom knows. He doesn't talk to Mom about it - if she hasn't brought it up and Fuyumi hasn't brought it up he doesn't think she needs him to do that right now. She doesn't like talking about Dad - positively or negatively, doesn't matter - much at the best of times, even though she tries for her children's sake. He half-expects a call from Endeavor, trying to clear up the situation, but he doesn't get one. He wonders if he should call Endeavor, doesn't. Shouto is fine.
"Does it change things for you that it's a man?", Ms. Andou asks gently. That's… a question, for sure.
It's not like there's no one else. He thinks about Bakugou, who had entered the boys' locker room on their first day at UA with a declaration that anyone who had a fucking problem with what he looked like could come get their ass beat out back (an offer that nobody had taken him up on), of Tsuyu who had made no threats but been accepted by all the other girls nonetheless. Tokoyami and Jirou nonchalantly trading vampire-themed boys' love manga volumes in the common room, Kirishima who, in all fairness, Shouto tries not to presume anything about but who has never been heard talking about girls with anything close to the adoration in his voice when he talks to or about men of the built, assertive, leather harness-wearing persuasion. More, probably - out of all his classmates Shouto is pretty sure he himself is the least familiar with people's personal lives. It's not weird, for Shouto or for his father, to like men. He just hadn't thought it would be both of them.
It's good that Hawks is a man, Shouto has in fact caught himself thinking these past few days, and then felt very stupid for it because it isn't like being a man makes Hawks any less of literally half Endeavor's size than Mom is. At least Hawks probably can't get pregnant with the third attempt at the perfect quirk baby, unless there's a situation there Shouto hasn't even heard rumors about - he supposes that's actually not out of the question, because why the hell would he know what kind of bits Hawks was born with? He didn't even know his own father liked men. He simply has to take it on faith that his father has thrown out that lifestyle along with the heterosexual marriage, then. He has to take a lot of things on faith with his father, at least since the man, from one day to the other, had decided it might be worthwhile to give "being someone his children could have faith in" the old college try. That, ditching the wife you destroyed for a hot twenty-something hero with a mysterious past and floppy idol hair - surely both items on the "how to shake up your life" handbook they hand out to middle-aged heroes dangerously close to being completely overtaken by the rancorous chips on their shoulders.
Shouto has only said some of that out loud, but when he looks at the therapist's face he realizes it was definitely the bitchiest part. He swallows, tries to think, tries not to think. Neither works. Thankfully, the therapist interrupts.
(The thing is that Shouto actually quite likes Ms. Andou, the quirk counselor - well, she was one before this, is what she told him during their first session, but now after the war she counsels soon-to-be-pro-heroes instead, those like Shouto who had to fight real battles long before anyone had expected them to. In the movies therapists always have conveniently suitable quirks, like emotional calming or inducing suggestibility or, in one movie that Shouto remembers watching with Izuku a few months ago and quite liking, the ability to see into people's pasts. It hadn't occurred to Shouto how unethical that sort of quirk usage would be in real life until he met Ms. Andou and found out she could fill empty spaces up with water, which does not affect her vocation in any way except removing the need for her or her patients to trek all the way out to the water cooler a few rooms from her office. Shouto thinks she must be a little older than his parents. Her hair curls up a little at the end. Her voice does make Shouto feel calm.)
"It's alright to say that you're worried about Hawks, Todoroki. That only shows that you're a considerate sort of person." Should he even have mentioned Hawks by name? It feels intrusive, somehow, now that she's repeating it back to him, but then again she would have known who he was talking about immediately if she's someone who keeps up with news even slightly.
A considerate sort of person. It stays with Shouto, after the session. Izuku had told him something similar once, but for a whole different - opposite, even - reason. That because he was so kind, considerate, he had forgiven his father. It was true enough, in a way - Shouto's relationship with Endeavor had shifted significantly in just the few months before that conversation, so much of it thanks to Izuku himself. What Shouto doubted was the reasoning. Was it truly kind, to forgive someone who had not only hurt him - he could live with that - but his mother, siblings too? After the war, after Touya's violence and Endeavor's fall, Shouto had almost forgotten to ask himself these questions. Endeavor had seemed alone, weak, even pitiful much of the time. Now he's with someone else - someone else he could hurt. Someone who, far more than Shouto's mom ever had, trusts and admires him damn near unconditionally. Who is beholden to him - his favor, his ambition, even his status which is not yet an insignificant factor despite Hawks himself having recently overtaken his formal position - in the way Shouto isn't anymore, likes to think he's freed himself from.
He has to know.
Endeavor is driving him to UA after a weekend lunch with Fuyumi when Shouto finally broaches the subject.
"You have a boyfriend." Characteristic Todoroki bluntness, weaponized. Shouto does have some social acumen - it's just that most of it happens to be tailored for the unique situation of dealing with his father.
Endeavor's eyes are on the road. "You weren’t supposed to find out like this. All these years I thought I knew how to be careful."
"It's Hawks," Shouto continues. "How did that happen?" The war, is the obvious answer, but he wants to hear his father say it.
"The war…", Endeavor begins, and Shouto has to fight himself to not snort out a laugh. "I… learned some things about myself. Or learned to accept them, rather. Hawks did too - and will keep learning now that he's Number One. We… fit together, I hope. I didn't want you to find out like this."
"Did you want us to find out ever?"
Silence. So probably not, then. Poor Hawks.
"Shouto, I really am sorry for this. It would come as a shock for any boy, to find out his father is - is like-"
"Like me," Shouto says calmly. Endeavor draws in a breath. "You didn't know that, huh."
"I did not." His father says slowly.
"You can't have a problem with it, considering."
"I don't," his father says, this time so soon he's very nearly interrupting. "I'm proud of you, for - for standing by yourself, this early. Hawks did too, about this if not much else. I - didn't. Obviously. I don't - think there's anything wrong with it, obviously, certainly not now, but I thought if you didn't understand you might have a hard time -"
Shouto understands all too well and is still having a hard time.
"When did you know? Not admit it, but - know."
A moment's quiet. "UA. I had… a girlfriend, for a month, in my second year. It did not work out."
Shouto barks out a laugh. "You're madder than I thought." Endeavor stays silent this time. Shouto goes on. "It's nothing compared to what you put Mom through, of course… but you abused your own body as well. Made it do things you didn't want to - that you knew you didn't want to. Why?"
"To beat All Might." A familiar sentence - a recital, really. To do good, is what he doesn't say - has never said. He's not that delusional. It all seems almost farcical, to Shouto. All this mortification of the flesh, in every sense of the word, for this. Shouto doesn't need to ask if it was worth it - Endeavor has owned up to the answer to that already.
"Don't hit Hawks." The words come out all at once, stumbling over each other. "I talked to him a little, during the war, but I don't know him. I don't know what - who - he'd tell, if you did. We'd find out, though. Me and Natsuo." Shouto feels his own fist clench in his pocket. He unclenches it.
"I - I love Keigo."
"And you hit Mom because you couldn't love her, is that right?" Something like ice cracks inside Shouto's chest.
"No, Shouto." Another long pause. Shouto is surprised to see no signs of Endeavor's quirk anywhere on his body - he is still too used to seeing those flames even in the most mundane of settings and usually as his father's first or only sign of emotion. "I won't do those things again. I don't expect you to believe me. I'm not a hero anymore, but Keigo - Keigo thinks I am. Loves me like that."
The way he words it doesn't make all that much sense, in the context of what he's supposed to be responding to. Shouto understands, though. There's Endeavor, the hero now out of commission who a young colleague fell in love with for his bravery and strength. And there's Enji, who was so much of a coward that he gave up on beating All Might himself and decided that creating a ruin of a family was the best path forward. Shouto's father believes that his partner loves Endeavor, not Enji - doesn't want his partner to ever see Enji, in fact. When he puts it that way Shouto can't really argue with him. There is something funny, or something that should be if Shouto was equipped with more of a taste for irony, about Flame Hero Endeavor also being split in half like this. Like his masterpiece, and like Touya with his body put together as if designed for a battle with itself. Is it right, then, for Hawks - Keigo? - to love one side? Is it all he can reasonably do? Will it burn him like it burned Touya, and has he - just like Touya - already been burnt too badly to feel the pain if it comes?
Izuku knows a lot about movies all of a sudden - apparently it's an old hobby of All Might's that he has time to engage with again after retirement, and he's been showing Izuku some of them when Izuku visits him. Shouto would expect them all to be American action movies of the sort that both his mom and dad would always mock as being superficial and vulgar in their upbeatness, but those are only a small part of the palette of taste apparently cultivated by the former Symbol of Peace. Tonight Shouto and Izuku are watching an older martial arts drama, perhaps from their grandparents' time. It takes place in a time before quirks, so only one of the two main characters has special powers, and he has to spend years training to even begin acquiring them. Shouto likes the movie.
He likes Izuku's hand resting on his shoulder even more, but the longer it goes on the more it feels like it's burning him. He'd tell Izuku if he could figure out why.
"How was the visit?" Izuku's voice is gentle, not like fire at all. Shouto is suddenly acutely conscious of his own hands, resting in his lap. They've always been larger than Izuku's, and one of them can literally burn.
Shouto lets out a small laugh, sounding more than a little hysterical to his own ears. "My father promised he wouldn't do anything to hurt Hawks. I told him I'd know before anyone else if he did. I don't know how I felt so sure of that in the moment."
"Shouto." The movie is distant, far away, but Izuku's voice is close. His hand feels like fire on Shouto's shoulder. "It's not your responsibility."
"How is it not?"
"I - well, it is, then," Izuku amends. "But it's mine too. Your siblings'. Hawks' friends and colleagues'. Endeavor's own, most of all. Ours."
"If it happens - what happened to Mom - how am I supposed to know? I want to trust him. I do trust him for some reason." That's what feels the worst, really - that Shouto has to make himself be suspicious at times, already too used to this "changed" version of his father.
"It's okay to trust him, I think. None of us would be able to make it work together - I mean in society, not just us - if we couldn't, at least sometimes." Shouto dares to take a glance at the boy by his side. He isn't crying like he sometimes does when he and Shouto talk about these things, but his face is a little flushed. "I think you're doing the right thing. If anything makes you feel off, makes your siblings feel off - we'll deal with it then. For now - well." Izuku cuts off. The fire feels all inside Shouto now. He lets his left arm rest around Izuku's waist.
("It is a little funny that you and your dad are both gay - well, not funny, and it's not that unlikely considering how many of us there are just in Class A, but it's not something that you-"
Shouto can't help it. He breaks down into giggles, and Izuku, a little bemused perhaps also at his own rambling, laughs along.
Maybe that's just how things are. Unlikely, yet constantly happening regardless.)